- that's for golden state hardware, bitch! - really? tonight on "rock center" richard engel uncovers a huge plot by hackers to empty the bank accounts of so many ordinary americans using their own computers to rob them blind. it was an ingenious crime operated from overseas. >> they got away with close to $70 million. >> they ought they were out of reach from american law enforcement. >> one of the young ladies is sitting in her apartment with spread $100 bills. >> reporter: until an unlikely team of students and their professor helps bust them. also tonight, he became a legend from one of the most shocking upsets in modern olympic history and we got to know him back then. >> rulon gardner has upset the

king! >> but then he lost control of his own life. now rulon gardner is riegt to redeem himself. the question is can he still compete at age 40? also it's enough to make you miss the era when pregnant moms drank heavily and smoked like chimneys. "mad men" is back on the air and they have allowed us behind the scenes. >> i often have to light a cigarette for someone. i always carry a little vacuum. and the sound we cannot get away from. it happens everywhere and it has happened to most of us, and cell phones are here to stay. they can really ruin a performance. tonight our report uninterrupted as "rock center" gets under way.

good evening and welcome to "rock center." we begin tonight with an investigation by richard engel that uncovers a scary new kind of theft, and it's scary because any of us can fall victim and get cleaned out at any time. when we hear about online attacks by hackers, we usually think of shadowy groups bent either on political mischief or corporate espionage of some sort. but some groups are now using the same sophisticated technology to target personal computers and steal your savings in the process. but there is also a surprising hero in this. richard now reports on a whole new breed of computer thieves trolling around for easy money. >> reporter: for nearly 400 years, nestled on a serene coastal inlet, dartmouth, massachusetts, seemed out of harm's way, protected, safe. residents here might never have believed they would become the

target of one of the most sophisticated international crimes ever carried out. >> i was just numb. i didn't know what was happening. >> reporter: joan harwood plays her part in keeping her community safe, managing the payroll and expenses part-time for her local fire department. working from home in early 2010, she had trouble logging on to the department's bank account. her computer was slow, acted up. then crashed. joan called the bank. >> they just told me that some wire transfers had been made from our account. >> reporter: and you said what wire transfers, i didn't make any wire transfers? >> exactly. >> reporter: when she was able to access the account, she was dumb founded. >> it was six transactions, almost depleting the account for zero. >> how much money was missing? >> almost $400,000. >> reporter: nearly half of the fire department's annual budget was gone. stolen. >> how did you feel when you saw all of those withdrawals? >> devastated.

>> reporter: as joan struggled to comprehend what was happening, why it was that a fire department in a little town of dartmouth, massachusetts, had been robbed so blindly, she had no idea that across the country, dozens of other institutions had also been hit. some even harder. in des moines, iowa, a catholic diocese was taken for nearly $700,000. a mississippi retirement home and a chicago bakery were also fleeced. and a michigan facility manufacturing prototype parts for the defense department was hit for $5.2 million. in all, some 400 american businesses and organizations were robbed over the internet. >> is it fair to say that this was the biggest cyber crime in u.s. history? >> it's one of the largest that we've seen by an organized group. >> reporter: fbi assistant director shawn henry, one of the country's top cyber crime fighters says most of the businesses and organizations

were taken by a single group of computer hackers. >> they actually got away with close to $70 million. >> $70 million? >> reporter: but when it came to cracking the case, it wasn't the fbi that played the critical role, it was a university professor and a group of volunteers. >> this was a high priority thing for us. we called the fbi and said we need to brief headquarters on this today. if money is missing out of your account, who do you call? do you call the police? no, you call your bank. >> reporter: his name is gary warner, a professor at the university of alabama at birmingham, whose unique program combined computer forensics and justice. >> so you teach people to fight cyber crime? >> that's right. >> reporter: warner is also a member of infragard, an off-the-radar fbi-affiliated group of about 50,000 members. they monitor the internet and critical infrastructure. >> is it like a private citizens watch group? >> that would be a good way to describe it.

>> reporter: warner had discovered a dramatic spread of a malicious computer superbug called zeus. the bug spies on users as they type, copies passwords, targeting online banking. >> it knows you're on the name of your bank here website. and when it sees you typing into the bank's website, it knows which screen on that website has your user i.d. and password. >> reporter: once the hackers use zeus to steal your password, your bank account may as well be theirs. zeus even sends the hackers a convenient text message alerting them when the account is ready to rob. >> within seconds someone is on your computer doing that wire transfer. >> reporter: warner red flagged the fbi after he made a critical breakthrough. he found a common link between hundreds of thousands of zeus-infected computers. he mapped out the connections in charts that looked like abstract art. the trail led 5,000 miles away to eastern europe, to ukraine.

>> who are the masterminds? >> they were people we had never heard of before. these guys were new people. they were establishing a better technology and using it in a way we hadn't seen used before. some organizers and coders who said we're going to change the way people steal money. >> reporter: the hackers targeted business payroll accounts, transferring stolen cash to personal accounts inside the united states rather than make slower and riskier international transfers. >> that's where the timing comes in. this particular group of zeus professionals, i have to respect them and call them professionals, they're criminals, but they had their organization down. >> reporter: not just good organization, but dazzling ingenuity. to get their hands on $70 million in cash, the hackers turned people into money mules. >> the first money mule activity we started seeing was people who would receive an e-mail saying you can get a work-at-home job.

>> reporter: the work-at-home job schemes employed more than 3,000 people, many of them unwitting american citizens who opened bank accounts where they received illegal deposits. >> they would receive many $9,000 to $10,000 payments into their account. they would take the money out and wire a quarter million dollars to the ukraine. people would take 10% commission and it worked. >> reporter: after banks got wise to the schemes, the hackers came up with an even boulder plan. they recruited dozens of students from eastern europe, arranged fake passports and u.s. work study visas for them and packed them off to the united states as the new breed of money mule. >> and they said your job is we want you to use assumed identities and go in and establish bank accounts. >> the mules, these students arrive in the united states and they open bank accounts under false names with fake passports? >> right. it's still a little gray on whether the students who were recruited knew that they were being recruited for crime.

>> reporter: but if they didn't know at first, they would soon. as soon as the hackers made transfers to the mule accounts in the united states, the mules immediately withdrew the stolen cash. then they sent the money by western union or moneygram to ukraine or other countries, or else they brazenly stuffed tens of thousands of dollars in cash into duffel bags and flew home, taking their 10% cut. >> they had probably seen their friends make lots of money and come home and assume they would come to the united states, make lots of money and go home. >> reporter: some did, others were arrested, but not all of them. after the fbi released a poster of mules still at large, gary warner made finding them a pet project in his computer lab. he decided the best people to track down a bunch of cyber savvy students was another group of cyber savvy students, his own. >> and i posted the poster, handed it out to the kids and

said, hey, go find these guys. >> you made finding these suspects, these money mules, a class project? >> that's right. so the students began crawling facebook pages and v contact, a russian version of facebook, and were able to quickly identify profile pages of almost all of the at-large mules. >> they had facebook pages? >> they had facebook pages with amazing pictures. one of the young ladies is sitting in her apartment with a shocked look on her face with spread $100 bills. nice profile picture. >> not too smart. >> right. >> another one has a warmup jacket that says "i love new york" and he's surrounded by the people he just bought drinks for. >> this was a treasure trove of information for you? >> we had a good time with it in the lab honestly. >> reporter: in september, 2010, in an unprecedented fbi transnational sting operation, most of the hackers were taken down.

in the united states, most of the money mules were fined, served time in prison and were deported. but the fbi says some could still be lurking here. many of the businesses and organizations that were hit recovered most of their funds, although many had to fight with their banks. in dartmouth, the fire department was lucky, and quickly got back nearly all of its money. joan credits her bank's quick thinking. one of the money mules was caught red-handed trying to withdraw the department's stolen cash. >> how did you feel when the money came back? >> oh, my gosh. it was a relief. i think i cried then too. >> reporter: but we haven't seen the last of zeus. >> zeus infections are rampant still today. there are probably millions of computers in the united states that have active zeus on their machines right now. >> reporter: that's why fbi executive assistant director shawn henry warns that without greater vigilance, there will be more cyber theft.

>> the opportunity for these groups to make more money online with a perceived less risk is increasing. >> why risk robbing a bank with a gun when you can do it from the safety of your home on a computer? >> that's the perception. we've had people sitting halfway around the world in their pajamas with a wireless laptop who are able to access banks around the world without ever leaving the comfort of their home. >> reporter: henry says some agencies calculate american losses to cyber criminals in the hundreds of billions. >> one recently calculated the annual cost at $385 billion a year. >> reporter: and he says future losses could be even greater, if we don't wake up to the threats. >> if i were to tell somebody that there was a bomb in their house, they'd get out. but if i tell somebody that there's somebody in their computer, it just does not resonate because they oftentimes don't see anything missing. >> reporter: who is protecting american computers right now?

>> consumers are responsible for their home computer just like you're responsible for protecting the outside of your house. if the fbi gets involved, something bad has already happened. >> richard engel reporting for us tonight. by the way, there are a few simple steps you can take to protect yourself online. we've put a list of them on our website, rockcenternbc.com. coming up a bit later on tonight, he went from olympic gold medal winner to reality show loser and now wrestling legend rulon gardner is working his way back at the age of 40. harry smith is right there with him. and next up, the wait is over. "mad men" swaggers its way onto tv. we'll talk to its creator, we'll learn more of the secrets of its impeccable and exacting style. >> this is one of my favorite dresses actually that betty wore in season two. >> i don't understand. hello, it is i your boss. great news! the video call went very very well. asia is on board. too bad you couldn't participate. probably you were worried

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learn the secrets of "mad men's" style. >> where the hell have you been? >> this is the reception area here. it's very colorful. we are, of course, supposed to serve the drama rather than just create beautiful pictures. >> how'd it go? >> get back to work. >> if it looks good on camera, then i feel like i've done my job well. one of the challenges we have on the show is that we're shooting

an advertising agency which is set in period new york city. what's outside the windows is not something we can travel to new york and photograph directly. the ad agency is set in the time life building, which is directly across the street from rockefeller center. >> last season we brought in a candy vending machine which was something that we had to find in a very short period of time. i found a couple in oregon that was on craigslist and they were selling their candy machine that worked. safer than cigarettes. >> these are herbal cigarettes, filters cut off. how they can smoke them and look like they're enjoying them is beyond me, because they're disgusting. >> i often have to light a cigarette for someone. i always carry a little vacuum to light a cigarette.

so when we're shooting in draper's office, we have canadian club ready to go. >> cheers. >> this is a concoction of water and caramel food coloring, it has no alcohol. >> again. >> so they can drink a lot of it. >> why is this empty? >> because you drank it all. >> people don't save old liquor bottles, so we'll build a label. it's hard. it's hard to make it exactly perfect, but we do our best. we have a guy who makes our ice cubes. he makes particular one-inch square ice cube that say just look like every advertisement that i pull out of a magazine. milk carton came from an antique mall. the sanka jar is perfect. we remade the label, we found the top. it's got to be right or it doesn't feel right to us, it doesn't feel right to the actors. >> here we are at the "mad men" costume shop.

as you can see, it's just like rows and rows of clothing. this is one of my favorite dresses actually that betty wore in season two. >> i don't understand. >> i really need a garment that was going to be able to tell a story of the breakdown of betty. >> are you okay, mommy? >> i named it the sad clown dress. i really do love slips and i love foundations and undergarments. basically you wouldn't leave the house without your girdle. that was such a huge part of getting dressed and also such a huge part of how the costumes look for the show. and people are so fascinated with all those details because i think it's something that we really don't do anymore. >> the girdle thing especially. as devoted fans of the show know, the person most responsible for the incredible look and feel and rhythm of "mad men" is the show's creator, matthew weiner.

i caught up with him as season five gets ready to start on march 25th. for a show on basic cable with about half the viewers of "jersey shore," it sure gets its share of time and attention and ink, including what may be the ultimate tribute, it's already been parodied. >> well, hello. >> don draper. >> let's get me out of this skirt. >> jon hamm being on "saturday night live" and seeing the show lampooned is one of the things to check off your list of having a successful, creative experience. it was surreal for me. >> is this another thing to check off your list? >> some things weren't even on my list. >> ought only a cover story on the show, which happens all the time, a themed issue back to your era. this is as great a tribute as anything it strikes me. >> it's sort of like having a time machine, going back and

sticking yourself in a picture. it's incredible. >> weiner is such a stickler for historical accuracy, from props to dialogue, that when something rings untrue for the time, "mad men" fans quickly call him out. there have been a few glaring examples of expressions of today repackaged as the things that were said back then. >> 1960, i'm so over you. >> i will get her so pregnant. >> it was going great until it wasn't. >> the quotes i killed you on my blog on it was going great until it wasn't. >> some of that stuff is not accurate. >> i would get her so pregnant. >> yeah, expressions are tough because believe it or not, a lot of the expression that say we identify with the '60s and even the '80s are from the '20s. so things come in and out, right? so you'll hear someone this year say the word bitchin, but it's a car culture word from the early

'50s. and some of it just happens. some of it just slips through. >> and weiner is putting out a fire before it even flares up. based on just the observations from a few critics who have already seen an advance copy of this sunday night's premiere, he is already removing a song, "the look of love" before it airs sunday because the song didn't exist within the time frame. >> "the new york times" has a great quote. to a large extent weiner and his staff members brought this festival of nitpickery on themselves through their own perfectionism. that's a great sentence. >> i think it's true. >> you must hate the nitpickers. >> i don't, because i want people to watch it with the idea with some safety that it's real. and i made the commitment dramatically to tie it to the calendar. >> oh, boy, you did. >> and i feel like it's an extra effort, but you know what, creatively it's a great thing because people asked me what did this look like and i say what did it look like?

>> so you have prop manager who say would probably kill you if they had the choice. >> they love it because usually people are whatever you want. they come in and say we got this ceramic elephant from my aunt. it's japanware, the first thing japan made after world war ii. americans bought them up like crazy. i was like put it in the show. >> whatever could be on your mind? >> how do you know when it's over? >> i can tell you that every year that you do the show, if you commit yourself to not repeating yourself, if you really say i don't want to fall into formula, no one does it deliberately, but there's a certain point where you're doing procedural, it can go on and on, you can change characters. it's fascinating to me because i get asked a lot about the end now and i'm a person like don, i don't even want to think about it. i have some idea the way you tell a story about it, but i do not want to even imagine what it's going to be like to shoot those last few episodes, write

those last few episodes. 100% of my emotion, of my heart when i'm doing it go into the show, and it is like death for me, the end of the show. i am in complete denial. but we should be living for what we have. i have 13 hours of the show that you haven't seen yet. sit back, enjoy it, don't worry about there being more. we'll make more. we'll go back to the kitchen. >> and there is more from matthew weiner and from the show's writers. we have put it on our website, rockcenternbc.com. up next after a break, we've all witnessed it, maybe we've been guilty of it. the cell phone interruption is the new annoyance of our time, and once in a great while it can really ruin something great and then look out. ♪ >> stop, stop, stop. how dare you! who do you think you are? get them out. t don't just listen to me. listen to these happy progressive customers. i plugged in snapshot, and 30 days later, i was saving big on car insurance. i was worried it would be hard to install.

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but that never really fully works because so many people think they have the one phone firmly under control and that's usually the one phone that then rings during a critical moment in the performance. as bad as it is when you're in the audience, think about how performers or preachers feel. willie geist went to ask them how they cope when the no cell phone rule is rudely violated. >> ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the booth theater. >> reporter: production stage manager james fitssimmons pleads with the audience at every performance. >> please take this opportunity to make sure that your cell phones are turned off. thank you for your cooperation and enjoy the show. >> reporter: but some people just don't cooperate. actor stacy keatch. >> it's a big problem. it's a terrible distraction not only for the actors but the

other members of the audience. it destroys the illusion. >> the one that always gets me, whether it's at a play or the movies is the one that keeps ringing and keeps ringing. >> oh, i know, i know. >> and you're going answer the phone. >> we all have our ways of coping. >> reporter: starring on broadway in the hit play "other desert city" says many actors have a line at the ready to address the inevitable cell phone interruption. >> i was doing a one-man show some time ago. a cell phone went off and kept going off. i finally just stopped and just said if that's for me i'll get back to them. i hear stories of actors who get furious and walk offstage and can't take it. >> reporter: patty la pone couldn't take it anymore. during a performance in 2009. >> stop, stop, stop, stop. you heard the announcement. >> it wasn't a ring tone but a flash that set her off. >> how dare you! who do you think you are?

get them out! >> reporter: all that drama was captured, of course, on a cell phone, and the audio posted on the internet. in january of this year, a concert by the new york philharmonic was interrupted by an iphone's miramba ring. that night wasn't recorded, but for the first time in history, a philharmonic conductor, allen gilbert, stopped waving his arms. >> the symphony ends incredibly quietly so there was no way that we could go on. so i stopped the music and i asked the general vicinity where the sound was coming from, please turn off your cell phone and i had to ask several times and it didn't stop. >> i have never stopped a performance because of a cell phone. >> reporter: but pianist and composer mark andre hamlin was inspired to write his ring tone waltz. ♪ based on the inescapable melody. >> i just heard it all the time, because at that point i think it

was the most prevalent cell phone tone. i just wrote this little one-page thing to get it off my chest. >> reporter: and cell phones have brought a little bit of purgatory to even the holiest of places. >> i think the cell phone is the modern technological equivalent of a demon. >> some of those ring tones of demonic. >> reporter: a priest at the famous trinity church wall street. >> so much of life -- >> reporter: he estimates a cell phone rings one out of every three services. one day, finding the source of that ring, really annoyed him. >> the third ring, the fourth ring and it suddenly dawns on me, oh, my god, and i realize it's my phone ringing. i couldn't even find it. finally i get it and turned it off. >> you were that guy? >> i was that guy possessed with the demon, carrying the demon in my pocket. ♪ >> reporter: at the current

broadway revival of "godspell" the demon is invited into the house. the show's producer, ken davenport. >> part of my mission as a producer is to bring broadway into the 21st century. >> and if this is the doctrine which corrupts the youth, then i am a mischievous person. >> reporter: in a mischievous act of marketing, godspell is experimenting with tweet seats. >> we carved out a few seats in the house just for people that do actually want to engage in tweeting throughout the performance. we secluded them, and that's the big test. >> reporter: the hope is that this spreads the word about your show? >> yeah, the hope is that it spreads the word about the show. if it also embraces a new generation, the average age of a broadway theater goer is 44. i just took the average age of my tweeters, 21. >> reporter: even so, most theaters and actors aren't yet

ready to go that high tech. stacy keatch offers a simple solution. >> cell phones should be checked at the door, they're weapons. like in the old days in the wild west days, check your guns at the door before you enter the saloon. >> and most people, willie geist, feel so bad. the back story of that guy in the symphony when they stopped the symphony is unbelievable. >> it's heart breaking. this was a 20-year subscriber to the new york philharmonic. >> a lover of music. >> a lover of classical music, had front row seats. the story goes he just got an iphone through his business the day before, had shut it off but inadvertently set an alarm that goes off even when the phone is off so it rang and it rang and they stopped the show and it continued to ring and it was him, the guy right there in the front row. >> and apparently he had a look on his face like, i know, can you believe someone -- and it has happened. >> he was one of the people calling for the guy's head and it turned out to be him. he's embarrassed.

he's called the conductor to make this right. he goes by the name of patron x because he doesn't want to be known. >> and this problem will probably now be with us forever. >> interesting solution posed by one of the producers there of godspell. ken davenport says demographics will lead us out of this problem. that is to say young people know how to turn off their phones. young people get that you do it when you go into a quiet place. he said it's never the young people. give us 10, 20 years, the phones won't ring anymore. >> i'm not sure i like your tone anymore. thanks very much, great piece of reporting. up next, he went from olympic glory to a spectacular public fall. the question is now can a very big man at an advanced age for his line of work really climb all the way back up again? >> i want to show the world that age is only a barrier. weight is only a barrier. 20 menu. over there, that's mike. we call him the comeback kid. 'cause he and his buddies they're always coming back to applebee's. [ male announcer ] right now, it's the jazzed up flavors of bourbon street. get one appetizer and two entrees

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welcome back. when it comes to outsized american characters, it's hard to top rulon gardner. he's the wyoming farm boy turned olympic legend, who won a wrestling gold medal with a long shot win over an opponent who

was thought to be invincible. his performance a few years later on "the biggest loser" was less impressive after his weight ballooned to almost 500 pounds, he famously dropped out as a contestant. now he has set for himself an almost impossible challenge. at the age of 40, he's trying to make the u.s. olympic wrestling team again. harry smith went to the olympic training camp in colorado springs to check in on the ultimate heavyweight. >> reporter: the last time many of us saw rulon gardner, he was competing on nbc's "the biggest loser." it's not the place we expect to find former olympic champions, yet there he was last year in a kind of self-imposed cruel and unusual punishment. in 2000, gardner won a gaeld gold medal. four years later the bronze in greco-roman wrestling.

since retiring, he had ballooned to 474 pounds. he turned to the reality show to do battle with his most formidable opponent, his own weight. at first he thought losing weight on tv would be easy. >> and then all of a sudden reality hits. okay, you're 474 pounds. you've got to start working. you know, i hadn't worked out in seven years. at this time i'm asking to leave "the biggest loser" for personal reasons. >> why not finish it? everybody is saying he is a loser. >> i never looked at my life of having to prove something to somebody else. the person i need to prove to is me. >> reporter: the first contestant ever to quit the show, gardner then decided hematomaed tohe wanted to see if at age 40 he could make the olympic team again. we went to the u.s. olympic training facility to watch. during drills designed for wrestlers to go at three-quarter speed, gardner was going all

out. maybe if he works hard enough, he can make time stand still. >> i'm a man again. i'm back to who i was. i want to show the world that age is only a barrier. weight is only a barrier. >> reporter: rulon, the youngest of nine children, grew up on a wyoming dairy farm where he was taught to believe in two things, hard work and the mormon faith. but it wasn't easy. rulon had learning disabilities and was one large kid. >> did people make fun of you when you were a kid? >> they did. kids would tease you. what was the worst was when i'd read a homework assign maenlt and i really struggled. >> reporter: they called him dumbo and fatso. >> the final match of this. >> reporter: at the 2000 olympics in sydney, gardner stunned the world. no one predicted rulon would win or even could win. no one. >> if gardner, the american, were to win this match, it would be akin to the 1980 u.s. hockey

team's win over the soviets. it would be that unexpected. >> i was nervous. i was a little scared, but i had this big, strong, powerful belief in myself. >> reporter: his opponent, three-time gold medal winner alexander carrela who looked like he stemmed out of the pages of a graphic novel, the ultimate specimen of soviet sports science had not lost a match in 13 years. he was quite simply unbeatable. >> that is huge, a 1-0 lead. >> reporter: but in sydney, gardner played the aggressor. he never let up. car ella, exhausted lost focus and in the blink of an eye, it was over. >> do you believe in miracles again? rulon gardner has upset the king! >> look, he's still got energy. >> so i did a cartwheel, a front wheel and got up and was like now what? because i never in a million years thought i'd actually win. >> reporter: after his olympic win, he felt invulnerable.

in 2002 while snowmobiling with friends in the wilderness, rulon got lost. he was soaking wet as the temperatures neared zero overnight. he wouldn't be rescued until the next morning. >> how close to dying twere you? >> at 4:30 in the morning i had a vision. i saw jesus, i got to see god, and i got to see my brother, ronald, who passed away. they came to me in a vision and said, rulon, let's go. it's time to come home. i'm going i'm not ready to die. i've got too much to live for. >> reporter: doctors eventually saved his frozen amputating the middle toe on his right foot. he went on to win the bronze medal at the athens games. >> i took my shoes off, placed them on the mat, basically said farewell to the sport of wrestling. i think that's a perfect ending to my career. >> what was supposed to happen after that? >> just have a great life. live happily ever after. >> reporter: it didn't turn out

quite like that. rulon quit wrestling, but he did not quit eating like an olympian. >> i went from being the best in shape athlete in america in greco-roman wrestling to a guy who did nothing. i had this false image of who i was. >> you're rulon gardner. >> i'm invincible. >> cammy gardner, a former college volleyball player is rulon's fourth wife. >> i definitely knew that it got to the point where it was a problem. i was always there to help him make better foot choices and kind of his conscience in the back of his head. >> reporter: but things got worse. in june 2010 rulon was inducted into the national wrestling hall of fame. rulon and cammy were watching tv coverage of the ceremony. what they saw shocked them both. that's rulon at 450 pounds. >> i remember him asking me if that's what he really looked like. he didn't even recognize himself. >> he might be an olympic

athlete, but he's still my little brother. >> reporter: rulon's sister, a cardiologist, knew where his health was headed. >> that your brother, who you love as much as anybody on the planet, were you concerned for his life? >> absolutely. risk for sudden death, period. >> reporter: that warning brought him to "the biggest loser" and then here to the olympic training center, and some of the biggest questions he's ever had to face. >> are you going to make the olympic team? are you going to come ck and win another medal? am i the size that they want me to be? not yet. but am i going to be? i will. >> olympic weights already this morning. take it up a notch. >> i'm trying to. >> reporter: to qualify for this summer's olympics, rulon faces two huge hurdles. first, he's got to make weight by april 20th. that's no more than 264 1/2 pounds. >> that looks like a lot of food. except i know how many calories you've burned into. >> i'm really feeling guilty.

>> reporter: and the second hurdle, only one u.s. greco-roman heavyweight can qualify for the london games. and before rulon reappeared, most bets were on army staff sergeant byers and still are. >> do i think i can beat him? i do. >> reporter: he has wrestled rulon many times especially in previous olympic trials. during our visit they practiced inches away from each other but never spoke. >> we're pretty good friends, but we haven't said more than two words in six months since i've been training there because he knows i've got a challenge. and i hope he knows that i'm not doing this just for me, i'm doing this for the u.s. >> reporter: but rulon can't face byers on the mat unless he's under 265 pounds, a weight he hasn't seen since 2004. >> what do you weigh now? >> that's a question i get asked every day. >> this is your life. >> reporter: even his coaches wanted to know what number would

pop up when rulon agreed to allow our camera into the locker room. for reasons only rulon knows, he would not turn on the scale or show us what he weighs. >> i can turn it off. >> far be it from me to question your confidence, but this is no small thing. what if you don't do it? >> oh, i'll make it. >> i know there's a lot of doubt about him making weight and him actually getting to where he needs to be, but everyone telling him he can't do it, the better actually. he thrives off of it. >> why are you doing this? >> because i can. because nobody says i can't. i lost a lot of who i was, and i don't ever want to lose myself again. >> harry, no one will ever forget when they saw that first up close and personal. two questions. what do you think he weighs right now as we're sitting here? and second, what are his chances? just you and me talking here. >> he's got about a month to go.

he probably weighs -- because we talked to him a lot, right around 305. he's got to lose 40 pounds in about a month. that's not going to be easy. it's very interesting. he loves having the deck stacked against him. you've heard that in the piece and you hear it about him in that story over and over and over again. at the same time, being there in the olympic village, there are people around there like i don't think he's got it this time. >> and yet you listen to him, and you listen to his wife, it's what fires him up, it's what motivates him. >> all of the above. but how interesting. how many stories about athletes have we seen once they have reached stardom, what is their identity afterwards, and he's trying to get his back. >> wow, fascinating story. we'll see how it develops. harry smith, thank you, as always. up next, we'll introduce you to another american chasing a dream. he's like to become the beer baron of beijing. and from what we've seen, he's

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americans have always seen themselves as adventurers ready to pick up and travel across the country in pursuit of opportunity. it's a central part of the american dream. tonight we introduce you to a man who will tell you his own story. he's leading a wave of sorts. searching for the american dream, not in a far corner of our country, but in a far corner of the world. >> i can feel like cleveland, ohio. it can feel like san francisco. it can feel like terre haute, indiana. but in actuality, you're in beijing, china, only half a mile from tianemen square. my name is carl stetzer, from cleveland, ohio, and this is my brewery. we've had an opportunity to meet other americans that have started businesses. lost and found which is a high-end fashion shop. there's the veggie table that deals 100% in vegan menu, drinks, everything.

and then there's home plate barbecue with texas-style, southern-style smoked meats and barbecue. all sorts of fascinating things that are really starting to represent the american entrepreneurial spirit in beijing which before was lacking. so every day i leave my house and walk to the brewery. most of these alleyways of 100 to 200 years old. a lot of culture and a lot of history here. we first opened to the public on october 2nd, 2010. the first night we sold two kegs and thought that was amazing. but now we move on average over 30 and 40 kegs a week. i don't think that i could do this in the states the way that we did it here. you look at a city like cleveland or pittsburgh, you're talking about urban center, 300 to 400,000 people, and there's a dozen or two microbreweries per city. here there's 22 million people

that live in beijing and as of 2011, we were it. >> in one of our beers we use peppercorn. >> you go to a market and there are these spices on the shelves that you'll never see in america and your mind goes crazy when you think about brewing. >> so usually when you come here, the best part is making banter with the vendors that run the stores. the vendor gave me his opinion of obama, which is he thought he was very evil. but he thought my chinese was really good so he split the difference. he seems like a pretty nice guy. and i think we've already started something that's going to inspire a lot more people to do brewing. i'm just very proud that we were the first. when there is a chinese brewery that makes a beer that's better than mine, that will probably be one of my proudest accomplishments. >> our thanks to carl setzer for his own story of his pursuit of the american dream. that's our broadcast for this week.

next wednesday here on "rock center" inside the secretive world of opposition research. it's the dark art of politics. you've seen it at work. these are the folks who go to great lengths to uncover a rival's weakness and then exploit it without mercy. >> every single aspect of your life is going to be turned over and scrutinized. you, your spouse, your kids, everything that you've ever done is going to be looked at. >> again, that is next wednesday on "rock center" at 10:00 eastern, 9:00 central. for all the folks who work so hard to bring you this broadcast, thanks for being with us. i hope to see you tomorrow evenin >> live, local, late-breaking. this is wbal-tv 11 news tonight. >> he told